


full bloom

by seventhswan



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bisexual Female Character, F/F, Families of Choice, Femslash February, POV Female Character, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 15:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6013018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhswan/pseuds/seventhswan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Rey isn’t sure that anyone really loves anyone else on Jakku. She isn’t sure it’s possible to let your guard down that far in a place that wants to swallow you up, scorch you, starve you. Love makes you soft, exposes the guttable parts of you. It wouldn’t be safe to love anyone. Nobody would be stupid enough.</p>
</blockquote><p>Rey saves a life, meets her family, falls in love, grows up, and learns that she doesn't know anything at all. Not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	full bloom

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!
> 
> Warnings: This contains references to Rey’s past on Jakku which obviously might be upsetting, and one minor injury. More detailed descriptions can be found in the closing notes. Please don't hesitate to inform me if you feel that more warnings are required.

The first few years after Rey’s family leave are a confusing haze of doing things wrong, being punished, learning to keep walking against the gnawing feeling of a hungry belly, and finding private places to cry. It’s a long, hot, hard slog, one that hardens both the baby-soft soles of her feet and her nerve.

But she learns. She learns “not here, human” in ten different languages, learns where she can go, where she can sit to eat her portion. Which fights she can win. She learns to run, and it even makes her happy sometimes, on those days when she has enough to eat that she can spend energy on running that’s for fun, not survival. When she gets the chance to do it in that special twilight hour between Jakku’s scorching day and its freezing night.

She tells herself it’s stupid to hope for more. For friends. She tells herself nobody on Jakku has friends, even when she sees evidence to the contrary – a small scavenging gang that collect their portions together and eat together all the time. They all seem to get enough, even though one of them looks small and slow – not smaller than Rey, admittedly, but she’d bet they’re slower. They even laugh sometimes. Rey can’t remember the last time she laughed. 

It’s months of eating her portion while keeping one eye on them, wondering what they’re talking about, before their leader approaches her. Mashra, her name is. Rey has overheard the others addressing her. 

She casually puts a little extra food on Rey’s plate before she says anything, and it’s that which convinces Rey that she has to join up, more than the laughing (more, even, than the casual way Mashra will sometimes clasp the shoulder of one of the other scavengers, the way it gives Rey an answering itch on her own shoulderblade, a deep longing. Imagine being _part of something_. Imagine being touched, without being hit).

Because Rey has been learning, and she knows that nobody can afford to give any of their food away to strangers. She has learned that people die, even if they’re good. Faster, in fact, if they’re good. But Mashra must not _know_. Rey is going to help her. Rey will work so hard that they’ll all have so much food it won’t matter if Mashra is big-hearted and stupid with it.

“Hello, pup,” Mashra says. She has four dark eyes and tusks, and she should be scary but she isn’t. She holds herself meekly, which might be the key. Rey waits. She has to pretend to consider the offer, if it comes. Please let it come.

“I have heard some good things about you,” Mashra goes on. Two of her eyes look over at the quarterstaff leaning against Rey’s shin, and Rey straightens a little with pride.

Mashra barely gets the offer out before Rey is saying _yes_ , breathless with it. She thinks Mashra smiles, though it’s hard to tell.

|

In the two years Rey has been on Jakku, she hasn’t asked a single question. There’s been nobody to ask. Now it feels like every curiosity she has stored up in that time wants to foam out of her all at once. She asks about Mashra’s people – Aqualish, it turns out – and what it’s like to have four eyes, and about the few plants that grow around Jakku, and why Plutt is so mean to everybody. Mashra doesn’t seem to mind if she talks the entire time they’re on detail together, just answers everything in her slow, thoughtful voice. She calls Rey things that must be nice nicknames for children in Aqualish – little bug, green leaf, mushroom. It makes Rey want to do better.

It takes weeks, but eventually Rey gets to the Big Question. She times it for when they’re back at the gang’s base, and nobody else is around. The two of them are on watch tonight.

“Mashra,” she says, once Mashra’s fully concentrating on the parts she’s methodically cleaning sand from, so she might not notice how seriously Rey is asking, “you have this mark on your arm. And everybody around here seems to have all different kinds of ones, and I was just… I don’t know if people have them where I come from, because I can’t remember, and…”

Mashra makes the noise that Rey has learned is her laughter.

“Slow down, tiny anemone,” she says. She puts the scrap down and indicates the space on the ground next to her. “Mashra will give you a lesson, if you listen well.”

Rey sits down eagerly. It’s almost the end of the day, and the sky is purpling. It’s Rey’s running hour, but she’d rather be here, listening to this.

“Everyone has one of these, no matter what species they belong to,” Mashra says. She pulls up the sleeve of her clothing and reveals the splodge of blue on the inside of what would be her wrist, were she human. It looks like some kind of flower, but not one that Rey has ever seen.

“The person you will –“ and here Mashra pauses and makes a face, the kind of frustrated face she makes when she’s just made a sound that Rey clearly has not understood, “- be with forever, they have the same Mark as you. Same shape, same color.”

Rey thinks about this. Mashra holds out her arm in wordless invitation, and Rey traces her fingertips over the splodge. Mashra’s skin is cool to the touch, unlike Rey’s, but it’s the same texture all over. The marked part doesn’t feel different, which surprises Rey. She thought it might feel like a scar.

“Be with forever?” Rey asks finally, and Mashra makes a dismissive noise under her breath.

“I think your people probably have a different word for it,” she says. “Be with forever… Live together, look after. Share your food.”

Rey brightens at that.

“We share food!” she says excitedly, scrambling up onto her knees and putting her hand on Mashra’s shoulder for balance. “And we live together, Mashra, don’t we? The gang? And you look after me! And well, we all look after Grover –“

“That we do, mushroom,” Mashra says, and Rey can just about tell that she’s amused. Grover really is _hopeless_.

“Are we gonna be together forever, Mashra?” Rey asks, all in a rush. Part of her thinks the possibility should make her sad, because if she’s meant to be with the gang forever then maybe she can’t be with her family again. But at the same time, she wants to stay with Mashra and Grover and Yang and everyone, eating together, sheltering inside away from the sun. Raegr makes sure she gets the warmest spot at night, and Yang is good at punching people in the face when they bother her, even though she’s pretty good with her stick. She doesn’t want to be away from them.

Maybe she could have her family too, if they ever come back. Maybe the gang could come and live with Rey and her family, wherever it is they belong. It’s a lovely thought.

“Ahh, that is not how it works, mushroom,” Mashra says gently. “All of the gang have different Marks. I have not explained this very well. There is more to it than just that. You live together, you look after, yes, but there are only two of you. And you also – usually you make babies with.”

Rey reels back, disgusted, and Mashra makes her laughing noise, louder than before.

“Sorry, little rock!” she chuckles. “You asked Mashra a question, and I answer!”

This is kind of turning out more grown-up and boring than Rey had anticipated, unfortunately. 

“So… It’s like moms and dads,” she says, after she’s had enough time to recover from Mashra talking about making babies. Ugh.

“I don’t know those words,” Mashra says, apologetic. “Marks link two beings, and they live together forever. We have a word for it, it’s –“ and here she breaks off and makes a noise that sounds like when Rey drinks too fast and gets water up her nose – “but I don’t know what your word would be.”

It’s enough for Rey to go on, though. So there’s some boy walking around somewhere with some splodge on his arm and it means they’re going to have to get _married_. Sounds terrible.

There’s still something she doesn’t get, though.

“But Mashra,” she says, “I don’t have a Mark. Does that mean –“

“You are so young, little leaf,” Mashra says immediately. “A lot of my people do not get theirs until they are much bigger than you are. It will come.”

Rey sits still for a second, and Mashra picks up the rag she abandoned when this conversation started, goes back to cleaning off the lump of salvaged metal in her lap. She starts humming to herself a little, too. It’s probably a cue to Rey to drop the whole thing, but something else has just occurred to her.

“Mashra,” she says, her voice very, very small, “Marks are to help people find who they’re supposed to get married to, right? Is there any other kind of Mark? Like if you’d lost someone else – if you’d lost your family – then you could find…”

It’s normally difficult to read Mashra’s expressions around the tusks and the total blackness of her eyes, but Mashra looks so _sad_ that Rey knows the answer. Part of her wishes she hadn’t asked.

|

Rey couldn’t be less interested in falling in love, or whatever, so she doesn’t think much more about Marks. For the next few years she works with Mashra and the gang, and has a place where there’s always someone around to talk to, and spends her time running, and growing, and learning. Raegr and Stisillikin teach her to write, and Yang teaches her the basics of several other languages, quizzing her while they poke around in the innards of the downed metal giants dotted all over the desert.

And then, after a while, Mashra and the gang get the offer of a better life away from Jakku.

Rey isn’t sure that anyone really loves anyone else on Jakku. She isn’t sure it’s possible to let your guard down that far in a place that wants to swallow you up, scorch you, starve you. Love makes you soft, exposes the guttable parts of you. It wouldn’t be safe to love anyone. Nobody would be stupid enough.

_Please, pebble,_ Mashra says, reaching out towards her. The sun is beating down as always, and the wonderful machine that will take Mashra away is docked some distance away, waiting. _Come with us. Do not – do not make me leave you here. Please._

Nobody loves anyone on Jakku. It would be death. It might be worse, even, than that.

Aqualish have many eyes, but they don’t cry. It’s something Mashra always says, and Rey has never had cause to doubt the truth of it. She’s never seen evidence otherwise.

_Mashra,_ Rey says, and then chokes on the next thing that wants to come out. Her arms are leaden things at her sides, wanting to reach out, knowing that will only make it worse. Tears prick Rey’s eyes. Mashra turns her face away.

On Jakku, nobody smart loves anyone else. Rey knows that.

|

Rey remembers little of the years that come after that. Prices of rations go up and up, so she works longer and longer hours, but she welcomes that. There is nothing else to do, except wait and wish.

She gets harder, meaner, faster. There isn’t enough food, so she stops growing. She loses some of her hair. But she gets by, and nobody messes with her, and sometimes - _sometimes_ \- she happens across a particularly good haul and she gets enough for dinner that she can run her twilight hour. She imagines the gang with her, all running (Grover tripping, and Mashra yelling at him, and Stisillikin just ahead of her, always just ahead of her, kicking up sand).

She finds a place to live. She sings, sometimes, just to make sound. She thinks about Mashra. She looks at the sky and wonders which star is closest to where the gang are now. She wonders if, when she sees them again, they’ll even recognize her. She wonders if the next time she sees the gang, she’ll be introducing them to her family.

She sees a girl once or twice around Plutt’s place, with bright yellow hair done in this amazing braid like a piece of coiled rope. Hidden in the shade, she looks and looks at the braid, breaking it down into its component parts, unravelling it in her mind. She goes home and does it in her own hair over and over until she can make it neat and strong, with no mistakes.

She unpicks it as soon as it’s done, puts her hair back into its normal shape. She has to make sure she always looks like herself, not like – not like some exotic stranger.

After a while, she starts bringing the more interesting scrap and engine parts home for a few hours before she trades them in to Plutt. She breaks them down like she did the girl’s braid, disassembling, reassembling. Her fingers hum with the activity. It feels good. It feels good like nothing has in a long, long time.

She keeps one or two things. That feels good, too.

|

Everything changes when Finn – Finn, who is all funny asides and big, noisy body language – crash-lands into her life. Rey likes him instantly, with a little extra rush that she can’t identify. She’s never felt it before – this urge to just be _with_ someone else all the time. Let them hold her hand.

_Oh, Mashra,_ she thinks, a little giddily, _if you could see me now_.

She remembers an afternoon, years ago, and Mashra trying to explain soulmates. Remembers her own confused disgust, and the terrible idea of some boy walking around with a smudge that meant he would be hers forever.

She leaves Jakku for more than just Finn, the possibility he represents – she leaves Jakku because she is part of something bigger, because she’s needed. But at the same time, she goes with a hope in her chest that any day her missing Mark will show, and it will be the twin of Finn’s. 

|

She never sees the entirety of Finn’s left arm the entire time they’re on Jakku, and all throughout the mission against the Starkiller base. She tries to make a game of it, guessing what he might have, what she’ll have. She’s not worried about it; she’s certain that her own Mark will appear any minute, that this touch or the next touch or the next will activate it, bring it blooming bright to life. 

She isn’t sure if that’s how it even works, with late-appearing Marks, but it seems as good a guess as any. Her total knowledge of the whole thing still amounts only to what she was told in that conversation with Mashra when she was small, and her furtive glances at Marks she has seen on display around Plutt’s in the years since. 

She can wait. She has the rest of her whole life to be Marked, to learn what it means.

But then Finn’s in a coma, and she’s been given a mission that’s going to take her far away from him, and the world feels like it’s coming down but she has to go on. She always has to go on.

“Look after him,” she says to Poe. She’s only just got to D’Qar and now she’s leaving any minute, and they have barely even been introduced because there’s no time. Funny how she had so much of it on Jakku, so much that she wished it away, and now she hasn’t even enough to catch her breath. 

The conversation is heavy with the weight of their unknowing of each other, stilted and stiff. She’s grateful for BB-8 whirring at their feet, driving itself gently into Rey’s shins in either a caress or a silent protest at her leaving. The little droid is something to focus on that isn’t Poe’s thoughtful, handsome face. He’s beautiful in the stark orange of the Resistance pilots, although by all rights nobody should suit that color. Rey knows she’d look gray in it, her fair skin drained. 

He nods very seriously. There’s a gravity about everything he does – his walk, the movements of his hands. Rey straightens her spine, trying to echo it.

His Mark is on the inside of his wrist, quite high up. She sees it when he reaches out to shake her hand. It’s black birds in flight, silhouetted. At least, she thinks they’re some kind of bird. Those look like wings.

“Be safe, Rey,” he says. His mouth makes a soft shape around her name, like he doesn’t know her but he wants to. For a long moment she wars with the urge to reach out and hug him, take that hug she couldn’t bring herself to have when Mashra and the gang left. For a moment she thinks _what if I don’t come back_. 

“Okay,” she says instead. And, remembering her manners, “I will, thank you. I’m going now.”

The gang used to say that to each other when they were leaving the base on salvage runs. _I’m going now_. They said that, and then touched what Grover insisted was a lucky rock, so that they’d bring home a lot of good scrap. One lump of desert is just like any other, of course, but Grover wouldn’t back down. It used to make Mashra laugh.

_I’m going now_. The _I love you, I’ll come home soon_ was implied. Rey didn’t know that at the time, but she understands it now. It makes her face burn with embarrassment to blurt it out now, on reflex like this.

“Finn and I will be waiting,” Poe says, his tone even and warm, and it’s possibly the best thing he could have said. He waves before he turns back towards the infirmary, BB-8 at his heels.

Rey steels herself, takes a single deep breath in, clenches and unclenches her hands. This is her mission. She’s the only one for it.

She manages to wheel right around to face the vessel waiting for her, but she can’t make herself take a single step forward. Wonderful. She’s crumbling already. Everyone will be so glad they relied on her.

“Hey,” a voice says from somewhere on her left. It’s a bright, curious voice, the kind that normally has big ideas, and is good at convincing others to go along with them. “It won’t be so bad. That series comes with barf bags stowed under the seats.”

The voice belongs to a girl with long black hair, who’s leaning over an opened engine hatch as it smokes slightly. Her hair is folded up into a braid not unlike that of the yellow-haired girl from years ago, but Rey can tell that this girl, dressed as she is in pilot orange, has her hair bound that way to fit more snugly under a helmet, not for fashion. There are shorter strands falling around her face as though she either rushed it originally, or like she’s been sweating over hot components for hours. There’s dirt on her face.

“Oh, I – I’m a good flier,” Rey says. Just saying it shores up her confidence a little. She _is_ a good flier; she’d never be sick. “I’m not worried about that.”

The girl gives her an appraising look, her right eyebrow a little raised. Her eyes are beautiful, so dark. Rey feels a strange, hot lurch in her stomach at being their focus. She’s not normally the nervous or self-conscious type, but she supposes she’s a little all over the place already today.

“Yeah, what was I thinking,” the girl says. She doesn’t make any move to come closer to Rey, just stays by her work. She leans a little, her hip swinging out. Like Poe, she makes the orange look good. “I don’t think Dameron would associate with anyone who wasn’t.”

“Oh, you know Poe?” Rey blurts, which is _stupid_ , because she’s young and she’s clearly a pilot, why _wouldn’t_ she know Poe?

“I know Dameron,” the girl confirms, those dark eyes bright. Rey imagines she should probably feel put out at being so clearly laughed at, instead of being willing to volunteer for more. 

“And I know you,” the girl goes on. She says it like she’s saying she knows a secret, one that is sweet in her mouth.

Rey fumbles over the responses she could make. Ask for her name. Ask what she’s working on. If Rey had time she could shed her jacket and bend over the engine compartment too, fix it up. She’s never met a mechanical problem she couldn’t solve. How would the girl look at her then, standing next to her with a wrench in her hand, making the engine sing? Admiring, instead of amused?

It doesn’t really matter, but Rey feels like it does. More than that, even, she just wants to get her knees dusty on the ground, and earth herself in metal. It calls her.

“I have to go,” she says instead. She hasn’t actually moved at all during this whole exchange, but she takes a step back from the girl anyway. “I’m late.”

The girl straightens up and gives Rey the Resistance salute.

“Sure. Good luck out there,” she says, formal, all trace of mockery gone.

“Thank you,” Rey says. The moment drags out a little, and Rey wants to grasp it between her fingers and pull it out longer. There’s nothing left to say though, really, except - “you have…. Dirt on your face, by the way. Just here.”

She strokes her own cheek with a fingertip. Instead of looking embarrassed and hurriedly wiping at it, though, the girl just grins.

Keeping her eyes squarely on Rey, she reaches in to the open hatch and then draws out a fingertip coated in black grime. She wipes it deliberately over her chin, a big dirty slash.

“Good,” she says with relish, and Rey can’t help it, she laughs. That makes the girl’s grin get even wider, showing off a slightly crooked eyetooth.

Rey’s smile stays all the way through to boarding, to buckling herself in. All the way through final checks, even. 

|

It takes a while to convince Luke to come back with her. Rey spends a few nights sleeping under the stars, camped next to a fire. Luke has built himself a home, but it is not Rey’s home, and she feels strange about the idea of bedding down in there, of existing in someone else’s space when they are asleep and vulnerable. It would be like forcing Luke to walk around naked, or something.

The equivalency makes sense in her head, but Luke clearly thinks she’s insane. He lies out with her in the open anyway. The air here is cold and sweet and damp with moss, a lot like what she imagines the Aqualish homeworld must feel like. She feels cleaner than she has in years, like the sea breeze is whisking away the last of Jakku from her skin.

On the nights when Luke falls asleep early and she sits staring into the fire with nothing to do, she practices the braid the pilot girl wore. The methodical movements keep her mind away from anything else, from worrying about Finn flat on his back in the infirmary, not moving. 

Once, in the drowsy space before sleep, she sees the pilot girl in the infirmary with Finn. Her hair is unbound, and the tips of it brush Finn’s chest when she bends her head over him, her hand taking his pulse at the wrist, like a nurse.

When she lifts her head again she’s looking straight at Rey, her pretty face streaked with dirt. The full curve of her mouth is suggestive, a laugh banked in those dark eyes. She says something, but there’s no sound.

|

By the time Rey gets back Finn is awake and moving around, though still confined to the infirmary. Poe meets her coming off the craft to tell her specially. He has dark circles under his eyes that testify to late nights in the infirmary, watching Finn breathe. Just like Rey asked. He’s also got a cast around his left wrist.

“Didn’t let him out of my sight,” Poe mutters into her ear when he pulls her close for a friendly shoulder-clap. He pulls back and waves his wrist. “Even got this in the line of duty, tripping over a gurney. Can you believe that we haven’t found a better way to set broken bones? Well, that’s the doctor’s party line, anyway. She hates me, so she could be lying.”

“Well, I appreciate it,” Rey says. And then Poe is ushering her to the Infirmary, and Finn is in front of her, looking a little tired but still bouncing slightly like he can’t hold it in. When he takes her into his arms, he puts a palm around the back of her neck and presses their foreheads together, and Rey has to hold back tears. She’s missed him so much.

The weeks after that are full of discovery. She watches holos, and meets members of species she’s never heard of, and eats so much different food that she writes a letter to Mashra about it even though she can’t send it. _I didn’t know food could have more than one taste!_ she scrawls excitedly. Stisillikin and Raegr would probably have a fit over her how bad her writing has got if they could see it.

_Wish you were all here,_ she signs off. She keeps the letter for a long time, wondering if she went to the General they could send someone to look for the gang. But it would be a waste of resources, probably, and Rey is a relic of a place they all left behind. They have new lives now. Perhaps she’s better off with just her memories.

|

She makes other discoveries, too. She’s drawn into a world of easy touch with Finn and Poe, and once she gets a taste she’s starving as much for that as she is for food. Finn sits close enough to her at meals that their knees knock together, Poe equally close on his other side. Poe takes her hair down for her at night, brushes it through carefully, then makes a mess of braiding it one-handed. It’s still sweet of him, though.

It makes her happy, too, to see the way they’re so easy around each other. Sometimes when she’s walking through base with Luke, she’ll spot the two of them alone together on the fringes of activity, Finn’s eyes so bright and Poe’s fingertips caught up in his sleeve. See Poe touch the palm, the one that is half-covered by a cast, to Finn’s cheek. Hold it there a second, then say something quietly before they move off on their own separate ways (because they’re all moving, all goong somewhere, all the time). 

Rey knows Finn grew up with no family too. She wants her soulmate to know he is loved, and not just by her. She thinks it’s important.

|

“Have you ever been down to the water, Finn?” Poe asks one night, not long after Rey’s return. She doesn’t know how he finagled the triple dorm for them, but she’s grateful to be able to be in a place where she can hear Finn’s breathing if she wakes in the night.

“Here?” Finn asks. His voice is a little croaky, dry with sleep. “At base?”

“Yeah, or anywhere,” Poe says. There’s a rustle that must be Poe turning on his side to face Finn on the opposite bunk. “Finn. Have you?”

They don’t know she’s awake, Rey realizes. She’s too tired to speak up, so she just listens.

“No,” Finn says finally. “I didn’t… I didn’t even know there was such a thing as the ocean. Not really. I mean I’d never seen anything like that.”

Poe hums a little. “Ouch,” he murmurs. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Finn says, and Rey can hear the tension in his voice, the nervous way he must be holding himself. Poe tuts.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says immediately, realizing his mistake. “It’s just sad. We’ll go. We’ll go down there soon, and swim.”

Finn lies back against his mattress, alert over.

“Is the ocean really so great?” he asks. 

“It’s that great,” Poe confirms, voice warm with conviction. There’s silence for a few beats, almost long enough for Rey to fall back to sleep.

“Do you think Rey’s ever been to the ocean?” Finn asks, so quietly that Rey almost doesn’t catch it.

There’s a little pause that Rey can’t decipher.

“Probably not,” Poe says, a beat too late.

“I can’t wait to see the look on her face,” Finn says. Rey feels a little burst of love for him bloom right under her sternum. She presses her hand to the spot, half-expecting it to feel hot.

“Yeah,” Poe says.

|

Rey would have thought that Poe’s broken wrist would keep him grounded, but he says the General has found a recon mission for him, with someone else piloting. She tries to be happy for him – and she is, she knows he’s been cursing the injury and fretting over how long it’ll take to heal, how long it’ll be before he can be useful again – but Finn’s so despondent about it that it’s hard.

It’s the first time Poe has been away from them since Rey returned. The first night, Finn climbs into bed beside her and she listens to his heartbeat, so steady. It makes her wonder if her own heart beats in tandem, if that’s a soulmate thing, too.

|

They spend the whole three days of Poe’s mission together, just the two of them whenever they’re not in training. They walk through the forest together, skim stones across the clear, narrow stream they find deep inside. Rey sketches under a tree while Finn ventures off alone. He refuses to tell her what he’s doing.

She dozes off accidentally before he returns, her sketchbook fallen to the ground beside her. When she wakes, it’s to the sight of Finn beside her, a bouquet of wildflowers in his lap.

“Thought we could put them in that big empty can we have, back in the dorm,” he says.

She rests her hand on his arm when she agrees, says yes, says thank you. This is going to be the rest of Rey’s life. She’s so glad.

|

On some days, virtually Rey’s every minute is accounted for. There’s so much combat training (for speed, strength, competence with an array of weaponry) and then there’s Luke’s training (the Force, the Force, the…), and then there’s flight training (because Rey might have natural talent, but she’s still completely self-taught, and she has a slew of bad habits to show for it. Poe takes those sessions, and he winks at her at the start of every class. Seeing his face takes a little of the sting out of how _basic_ it all is sometimes. 

Another thing that eases the sting is the fact that the black-haired pilot breezes into the class some days – frequently halfway through – to “help” by insulting Poe’s lesson planning. Then she usually whirls once around the room, none-too-gently correcting Rey’s classmates and chiming in a few tips before bustling out again. She has never introduced herself, and Poe never calls her anything that isn’t an obvious nickname. Rey wants to ask, but she feels somehow like Poe will read something into it. Like maybe it’s a creepy thing to want to know, when the pilot girl never really says much to her). 

There’s also Special Ops training (which she has with Finn, and occasionally Poe. That’s great, obviously, even if the class is _weird_. She learns about how to tie a really good knot, and spends a mortifying couple of weeks learning about honeypot missions) and finally there’s Communications, which General Organa is in charge of, and which Rey is sent to on account of her talent for languages (it’s even weirder than Ops. She learns about hostage negotiations, and how to be a better liar. She also takes a six-week pan-species etiquette course in which she discovers, amongst other things, that a surprising number of races spit on their food before eating it. She then has to _practise_ spitting on her own food. Thankfully they jam Poe in that class too, so she at least gets to laugh at the look on his face).

All of which means, basically, that the rough plans she, Finn and Poe make to go swimming are shelved indefinitely. They don’t see each other outside of training for more than maybe a half hour to grab dinner, and even then, it’s a rare thing for all three of them to manage it together. Poe is away the most, but Finn is gone a lot, too. Having brought Luke back, it seems that the General thinks the best place for Rey is with him and in intense training, so she’s almost always on base.

At least Rey has plenty to do while they’re away. Luke pushes her hard, hard enough that when she climbs into bed at night she’s almost already asleep. She thinks about the ocean, imagines what it will feel like around her feet, coming up over her calves.

She passes mealtimes and spaces between training sessions by looking out for the girl with the black hair, though she’s half-certain she must be away on a mission. The more days pass without a sighting, the more time Rey wastes thinking up elaborate scenarios where they meet again like something in a holo (the girl trips and Rey catches her, or someone insults her honor and Rey gets to leap in and defend her). 

It’s the sort of thing that helps her drift off to sleep on those few nights where her training just wires her up instead of exhausting her, but it’s also the sort of thing that only feels okay to think about when she’s alone in the dark. The black-haired girl, so self-sure and sparky and funny, would definitely laugh if she knew that Rey imagined rescuing her from anything.

|

It’s not like in a holo, at least not any one that Rey’s ever seen. A week into Finn’s latest away mission and two weeks into Poe’s, she goes down to the mess hall hoping to catch the early lunch with BB-8. It should be completely normal and uneventful, except BB-8 spots the black-haired girl clear across the room and rockets straight towards her, beeping excitedly. People have to leap out of the _way_.

“I am so sorry!” Rey pants, running up after it. She can’t quite look the girl in the eye; if she’d thought that this… whatever it is, fascination or something, would be diminished by time spent apart, she was wrong. If anything it’s worse. “BB-8 gets… excited, and doesn’t exactly stop to think about the fact that humans don’t have exoskeletons, and it hurts for them to get run over.”

The girl looks down at BB-8, eyebrows raised. 

“Oh, I’m aware,” she says. “It’s a total brat.” 

BB-8 backs itself up a little and then rams into her leg with what Rey is ninety-nine percent sure is affection.

[[Pav, Pav!]] it bleeps, that same nickname that Poe uses. [[So mean to BB-8 who missed you!]]

“I missed you too, you terror,” she says, lifting a hand and trailing it over BB-8’s dome. Her expression is almost unbearably affectionate, and it changes her whole face. Rey tries not to stare. “Dameron is already away then, huh? Must be if you’re on babysitting duty –“

[[BB-8 is not a baby!]] BB-8 interrupts immediately, and Rey has to hold back a hiccup of a giggle when the girl looks up and rolls her eyes very deliberately.

“Of course not, kid,” she reassures it. And then, mostly to herself, “I was hoping I’d at least get to say hey before he left, but that’s life, I guess.”

“He’s been gone two weeks already,” Rey says, hoping it’s maybe a comfort that she didn’t _just_ miss him. “They moved the mission up. And you’ve been gone –“

“Three,” the girl fills in, sighing. “We got what we went for, though, so I’m not complaining.”

She squints at Rey. There’s a pause that’s just long enough for Rey to consider excusing herself and grabbing a lunch to go.

“It’s the good lunch today,” the girl says. Her hair is loose today, and it falls over her shoulder when she inclines her head slightly towards Rey in invitation. “Join me?”

BB-8 beeps rapidly, chittering its pleasure, and does a figure-eight around their legs, herding them closer together.

“All right, all right,” the girl says. She almost loses her balance and sticks out a careless hand to Rey’s shoulder to catch herself. When she takes her hand back, Rey can still feel the impression of it. It makes her arm tingle. She has a brief, crazy moment of wondering if the feeling is her Mark suddenly springing into existence, but that wouldn’t make any sense at all. It’s been so long since she’s seen Finn.

“We’ll be friends,” she tells BB-8. When she looks at Rey it’s a strangely heavy look. It’s something she has in common with Poe. “Won’t we, Rey?”

|

Her name is Jess. Jessika Pava. She likes flying and speculating about new droid tech, and Poe, as much as she tries to play it down. Rey tries to catch a glimpse of her Mark, but the pilot uniform has long sleeves and it mustn’t be on her wrist, but somewhere further up. Rey has started to worry about what’s going to happen with Poe when Rey’s Mark finally arrives, and Jess would be great for Poe. She’d be a great soulmate for anyone, Rey thinks. 

And okay, even if it can’t be Jess – and she has to admit it probably can’t be, they’re good enough friends that if they were then surely they would have noticed by now - it could be someone else on base. There are lots of people around, great people. Jess is proof of that. Rey will spend her downtime watching out for any Marks in the shape of birds. Jess might help her look, even.

Everything is going to turn out perfect. She floats back to her room on air.

|

In the days following, three fortuitous things happen in quick succession –Finn and Poe come back from their missions within a day of each other, Poe’s cast comes off, and Luke cancels his and Rey’s evening training session.

“Oh, but –“ Rey says, trying to be dignified and dutiful, and not to sound like she’s practically already running away from him to her boys.

“It’s a nice night,” Luke says, making a tiny shooing motion. “The ocean will be warm.”

Rey gawps at him.

“How –“ she begins, and then realizes there’s a good chance she doesn’t want to hear the answer. He’s probably been lying to her all this time, and he _can_ use the Force to read minds. She’s better off in ignorance.

Luke just taps the side of his nose and smiles. Despite that he looks old, suddenly, and tired. Wistful. She quashes the urge to tell him to take the evening to rest, or go play chess with the General. Partly because it’s not her place, and partly because it’s not in his nature – he’ll take the time to find some other job to do, no doubt.

“Thank you,” she says instead. She hopes he knows she really means it.

|

They take three good soft towels from the laundry room, and some sweet things that Poe charms out of the mess hall cook, and race each other all the way to the shore. Rey has the giddy sensation of getting away with something she shouldn’t be, even though this has already been sort of sanctioned by Luke, and the water isn’t out of bounds anyway.

“Wow,” she says softly, drawing to a stop, caught up short at the sight of the waves lapping against the sand just ahead. The ocean is so blue here, dazzling. Even though evening’s closing in, there’s still quite a lot of light. It’s one of her favorite things about this planet.

Poe and Finn pull up behind her seconds later. One of Poe’s hands finds her left shoulder, and one of Finn’s her right.

“Winner gets shoved in,” Finn murmurs in her ear, and they push a little, just enough to make her take a big step forward. Rey yells, turning round and smacking them, not meaning it.

They go down to the sand to undress, which Poe explains is essential for swimming. Because Finn and Poe had the luxury of prior warning, they’re simply dressed in garments that can come off straight up over their heads; Rey on the other hand is in her complicated, layered training outfit, having come straight from the practice ring.

She’s just opened her mouth to complain about this when she looks up and sees Finn and Poe both shirtless. She’s distracted for a moment, taking a guilty second to look her fill while they’re talking to each other and taking no notice of her. As her gaze trails across them it catches on their left arms; Finn’s stretched out in the process of reaching down to untie his shoes, Poe’s raised to rake his hair back into place.

They both have birds. They both have black twin birds, in flight. Finn’s are on the outside of his bicep, very high up, practically on the shoulder.

She must make a sound, something that verbalizes the unsettling sensation of the ground tilting suddenly under her feet, because the boys stop talking immediately, their heads turning towards her in concert.

“Rey,” Poe says, “is everything –“

She just points at Finn’s arm. Her throat feels so tight that she’s sure she couldn’t say anything if she tried. Eyebrows drawn down in confusion, Poe looks.

Poe looks, and then he grabs Finn’s arm, and he looks again. 

“What is _going on_?” Finn demands, yanking his arm back, but then Poe waves his wrist in Finn’s face, so close to his nose that Finn’s eyes cross and he falls abruptly silent. Nobody moves. Nothing happens for what must only be a few seconds but feels to Rey like an hour. 

She can tell how gentle Finn’s fingertips must be on Poe’s wrist, how tenderly he must be holding it. The cast has only just been cut off.

Finn is clearly dazed with shock and something else, too, but Poe’s face just looks ashen. He’s looking at Rey like he can read her mind, like he knows _everything_ , all her hopes and dreams.

Her agony must be showing on her face. 

Her first instinct is to demand, betrayed, _why didn’t you_ tell _me?_ , but nobody is that good an actor. It’s clear from Poe’s utterly winded expression that he didn’t know either.

“Rey –“ Finn starts, and oh, there’s something else there. He looks guilty. Why does he look guilty?

“Did _you_ know?” she asks him, and then winces as soon as it’s out of her mouth. Her voice is too loud, too close to breaking. 

Finn shakes his head, holding his hands up, palms out.

“I didn’t,” he says. “I swear to you, Rey, I didn’t know. His wrist was broken before I woke up; I’d never seen his Mark. But…”

And here he glances across to Poe, and it’s a speaking look. Rey already feels shut out, and cold. The sea breeze suddenly feels icy.

“I felt something,” Finn admits finally, lowering his hands. He sounds shy. “I felt something I couldn’t explain. It’s a rightness.”

Rey nods, and then nods again because she doesn’t know what else to do, and then she starts to feel a bit sick.

“Okay,” she says. It sounds wet, and it’s so humiliating. “Okay okay. I get it. I understand. I…”

She doesn’t get it; she doesn’t understand. She feels angry, and annoyed at herself for being angry, because she has no right, does she, really? Does she have more claim over Finn’s love than Poe does? Did she really think that this was going to go her way?

But she doesn’t have it in her, right now, to be rational. The tears start rolling out before she can stop them. She wipes them quickly using her palms, and a hysterical little laugh bubbles up. She’s been so _stupid_ , bumbling along worrying about what would happen to Poe when she and Finn… She should have been worrying about herself.

It’s been months since she met Finn, and her Mark still hasn’t shown. She’s been completely fooling herself. Even if it weren’t for Poe, it never would have happened. It’s obvious now, that Finn isn’t the one. She thinks that really she already knew, she just couldn’t admit it. Couldn’t face the idea of being alone again.

“We never wanted to hurt you, Rey,” Poe says, and it’s clear he knows this is a trite, ineffectual thing to say, but equally that it’s the only thing available to him. “I’m sorry. I should have done something about it earlier, I should’ve demanded to see his Mark as soon as I suspected… This isn’t what it’s meant to be like, with soulmates.”

Finn looks up at hearing that word like it’s his own name, and before he can control his expression it softens, full of hope and love. Rey’s stomach lurches.

“Finn didn’t make me any promises,” she says, her voice totally flat. She wraps her arms around her stomach, inexpressibly glad she still has most of her clothes on. “Nobody did. It was all in my head.”

She takes a shuddering breath in. She can’t bear to look at the concern on either of their faces any longer. The sea whispers to itself behind them, rubbing up against the rocks. Rey wishes she could pitch herself in, and swim for miles and miles.

“Listen, I have to go,” she says.

They don’t look happy about it, but they let her leave. She works very hard not to run.

|

After she’s walked herself around the base’s perimeter to the point of exhaustion, she eventually settles down to sleep under a tree out the back of the practice arena. It’s right in the open and she’s totally alone; if anyone knew they’d probably be horrified, but Rey can’t go back to their room right now. Rey is a survivor, she survives things, but that doesn’t mean she signs herself up for unnecessary suffering when it’s avoidable. 

BB-8 finds her just before she closes her eyes. It rolls right up to her and starts making the high-pitched whirring that is its equivalent of horrified shrieking. It’s covered in dirt, and it has a twig stuck to it, anchored by a chunk of hardened mud.

“BB-8?” she asks, sitting up out of her bedroll. She was just close enough to sleep that sitting up leaves her disorientated. 

After a second, she reaches out to dislodge the twig. For a moment she’s just pleased to see a friend, and then an unwelcome thought strikes her. 

“Did someone send you to look for me?”

[[BB-8 was worried!]] it chirps. [[Rey didn’t come home!]]

BB-8 charges in their dorm, because it gets scared in the main droid station on base, away from people. Rey winces.

“Ah,” she says. “Does anyone know where you are? Does – does Poe?”

BB-8 gets weirdly shifty at that. Rey doesn’t even know how she can _tell_ that a droid is shifty, she just can.

[[BB-8 tells Poe it is going to visit Pav,]] BB-8 says. [[BB-8 heard Finn say Rey’s name and then Poe looked sad, so BB-8 -]]

“Lied,” Rey finishes. Despite the rotten night she’s had, she could almost laugh at the way BB-8 hangs its head.

[[BB-8 was worried,]] BB-8 repeats stubbornly. [[BB-8 looks after friends.]]

Rey leans back on her elbow. She’s exhausted and her eyes are gritty from crying, and she feels like she’s going to start all over again.

BB-8 speaks up once more, as if it thinks her silence is condemnation. 

[[BB-8 will visit Pav in morning; it won’t be a lie,]] it says.

“I’m glad you came,” Rey says. 

|

The two of them visit Jess in the morning together, because Rey doesn’t feel like she has many options for something else to do, and sitting around thinking sounds like a recipe for disaster. Strangely, BB-8 insists on leading her to the droid station, and ignores any attempt Rey makes to convince it that they’re going the wrong way, that Jess will surely be somewhere else.

The door to the droid station is propped open in the early morning sunlight, and inside it’s blessedly empty and still. Jess, elbow-deep in a sad-looking, battered droid, must be surprised to see them, but she doesn’t act it. BB-8 makes a sound of distress at the sight of the bot.

Jess gets up off the floor at their approach. She isn’t wearing her normal uniform, but a sleeveless tank in deference to the heat. She has a long, jagged scar over her left elbow; Rey momentarily mistakes it for her Mark.

“This one’s in last chance saloon,” Jess explains, indicating the open droid. “I’m seeing if there’s anything I can do for it before we break it up for parts.”

She winces. “Sorry, BB-8.”

Rey’s never thought about it, but she guesses hearing about that stuff for BB-8 would be like Rey taking a trip to check out a coroner’s office. She shudders.

Jess rocks back on her heels and wipes her hands on a rag that’s so filthy Rey isn’t sure how it could make any appreciable difference, watching as BB-8 trundles over to the droid and chitters encouragingly to it. Rey thinks she hears it say _[[it’s going to be okay, friend! Hang in there!]]_

“Poor thing,” Jess murmurs to Rey, not loud enough for BB-8 to overhear. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do, and now BB-8’s going to have nightmares, to boot.”

“I didn’t know you fixed these kinds of things, as well as fighters,” Rey says. Jess makes a seesawing motion with her hand.

“I’m no expert, I’m just a hobbyist,” she says. “Our tech people will only let me look in on the real no-hopers. Sometimes I get lucky with them.”

“More than sometimes, I bet,” Rey says, and Jess actually ducks her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Like she’s embarrassed. Rey finds herself charmed. She wonders what it would take to provoke that reaction again, for Jess’ barriers to come down even more.

“I do my best,” Jess says. 

“What’s wrong with this one?” Rey asks. The old droid has a squat body not unlike R2-D2’s. She has no idea just _how_ old it could possibly be. Droids aren’t really her area.

“Won’t even boot up,” Jess says, crossing her arms. “It must be a circuitry problem, which should be simple, but nothing I’m trying is working.”

She blows a big breath out, inflating her cheeks in frustration.

“I mean, it’s probably a stupid waste of time anyway,” she says, scuffing the bottom of her foot once against the floor. “The techs certainly think so. It’s so old that it probably won’t even be any use. It couldn’t run any of the software we have available on base, even if I get it to boot. I just –“

_Have a soft spot for lost causes,_ Rey thinks. 

“Think everyone deserves a chance?” Rey hazards. Jess nods.

“Yeah,” she says. She brings her hand up to her mouth and chews her thumbnail a little, then immediately drops her hand in revulsion at the taste of oil.

“It’s corny, but yeah. Even if it winds up just being a pet for someone who’s having a hard time, you know? Or maybe it can help with low-level tasks in the mess hall kitchen. Anything would be better than –“ she swallows – “scrap. There’s a voice in there somewhere. Droids aren’t people, but they’re not exactly… They’re not really machines, either. It feels like there’s someone in there.”

Rey feels another shudder race down her spine.

“Listen to me, all soft,” Jess says, self-deprecating, barriers back up. When she shrugs, it’s almost combative. “Now you know why I went in for flight training instead of medic training, right?”

“I always assumed you went in for flight training because you’re a damn good pilot,” Rey says, rolling with the clear subject change.

“Damn straight,” Jess says, her voice steady again. She winks. “I’m one of the best. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have other talents, too.”

Rey laughs like she’s supposed to.

“You know, I do, too,” Rey says. “One or two, anyway. And I have a free morning. Show me what you’ve been doing so far.”

|

She stays on her knees beside Jess for hours, all the way through to lunchtime. They don’t say much, other than murmured suggestions and venomous swearing when things don’t work. Rey teaches Jess a couple in the more obscure languages she’s been learning in Communications.

“We should probably stop for today,” Jess says eventually, when BB-8 informs them it’s gone noon. They haven’t hit on the solution, but they’ve at least ruled a lot of possibilities out. It’s something, and it’s both made Rey feel useful and taken her mind off… things. All in all, not a bad morning.

“Probably,” Rey agrees. When she stands, her knees are stiff, but she kind of likes it. “Are you coming to lunch?”

“Nah, I’ll catch the late lunch,” Jess says. She picks up a wrench and twirls it around a little. There’s a silence.

“Dameron pinged me last night, looking for you,” Jess says. Rey would probably have blurted it out awkwardly in her position, but Jess’s voice is completely even.

Rey freezes.

“What did he say?” she asks, afraid of the answer. Jess crosses her arms, the wrench peeking out of the space near her elbow.

“Nothing much. You know him, he’s all honorable and junk, he’d never give anything away. Just said he was looking for you, and gave me the impression something had gone wrong.”

Jess pauses. She uncrosses her arms again and twirls the wrench a little more. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips.

“ _Did_ something go wrong?” she asks. “I know that I’m Poe’s friend so maybe it’s awkward for you, but I’m your friend too, Rey. I’ll listen if you want to talk.”

Rey weighs it up. The possibility of humiliating herself totally in front of Jess, who’s cool and great and kind of everything Rey wants to be, versus the fact that she is maybe going to explode if she doesn’t talk to _someone_ , and probably the only other candidate is BB-8. Or Luke. And those are both horrifying prospects, in very different but equally valid ways.

“Poe is Finn’s soulmate,” Rey says. Might as well rip off the medi-aid fast. “We found out last night. I thought Finn was mine.”

Jess lets out a low whistle. She puts the wrench down with a clank and then drums her fingertips against the droid’s open hatch, fidgety.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That’s… difficult. I wish I knew what to say. Unfortunately that’s one area I am woefully underqualified to advise on.”

Rey frowns. Jess normally has an opinion on just about everything, whether anyone requests it or not.

“What do you mean?” she asks. Jess gives her a funny look, and holds out her bare left arm, turning it slowly from the shoulder, first one way and then the other.

“No Mark,” she says. Apart from the scar over her elbow and three little freckles near the wrist, her skin is clear and even. “Didn’t you notice?”

Rey didn’t. She’d been so consumed with the broken droid. After mistaking Jess’ scar for her Mark, she’d just figured maybe Jess’ actual Mark was somewhere odd, like in her armpit, and didn’t think more about it. She feels excitement fizzing in her.

“That is so weird, me too!” she says excitedly. She wrenches her sleeve up, and although it doesn’t expose her whole arm, it’s enough to get the point across. “We’re both still waiting for ours! How cool is that?”

Jess gives her the strangest look. She doesn’t look excited, she just looks confused, or like maybe Rey is pranking her. Rey feels herself deflate. Maybe this is some kind of Mark taboo that she just doesn’t know. Maybe she’s completely put her foot in it.

“Uh, Rey,” Jess says, in the kind of voice Poe uses to explain to BB-8 why it can’t climb trees, “what are you talking about?”

“You know,” Rey says, trying for breezy against the chip of ice settling into her chest, “our Marks. Some people get them when they’re older, I heard.”

“Rey,” Jess says, still in the tree-climbing voice, “I… Wait, maybe I shouldn’t be the one to…”

No. Rey knows immediately that she has to hear whatever this is, even as she can feel sweat starting at her hairline, her breath coming short.

“Tell me,” she says.

“I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, Rey,” Jess says, and for this she doesn’t fidget at all, which somehow makes it worse. “But practically everybody is born with their Mark. And then most of the people who aren’t, they get it before puberty. Then there’s the rest, like us.”

Rey’s legs go weak. BB-8 rolls over, beeping fearfully as she grabs onto the edge of the workbench.

“Like us?” Rey asks. Her voice sounds very small and far away, even to her own ears.

“Markless,” Jess says. The word seems to weigh a ton, dropping out of her mouth and hitting the hard floor with a clang. Rey’s hands are shaking. Jess steps towards her. “Oh, Rey, I’m sorry. I’ve known for so long I don’t really think about it any more.”

She puts a supporting arm around Rey’s shoulder and Rey leans into it. Her head is too light to do anything else. Jess’ pulse is an anchor, and Rey focuses on it. She smells like peppermint; somehow if Rey had been forced to guess, that would have been the scent she’d put money on.

It feels stupid to cry over this. When she was young she couldn’t have cared less about Marks. Why can’t she feel that way now?

_Markless_. **Without** , that’s what it sounds like. Incomplete. 

“Alone again,” she says, hating herself for letting herself be so vulnerable. She tries to laugh, to make it a joke, but it cracks in the middle. “Of course.”

“You’re not alone,” Jess says fiercely. She strokes her hand over Rey’s hair, over and over, gentle and insistent as the tide. “Rey. You’re never alone.”

|

She skips lunch. Jess says she’ll blow the whole day off and go somewhere with her, walk through the forest with her, go down to the beach, or just make a blanket nest in Jess’ dorm and plonk Rey in it, and growl at anyone who knocks on the door. 

They’re all great offers, but Rey just wants to sleep.

When she says that, Jess goes a bit pink and says she’s welcome to Jess’ bed if she doesn’t want to be disturbed. Part of Rey is curious – do Jess’ sheets smell like peppermint, too? – but she declines.

She goes back to her, Poe and Finn’s room, without even enough energy to care if they’re there. It’s a relief when they’re not. 

She pulls the scratchy blanket over her head and sleeps for six hours, but badly. She has a tangle of awful dreams and wakes with a crick in her neck. Instead of rolling over and trying again, she does what she should have done months ago and gets BB-8 to search its database for information on human Marks.

What Jess said is true. Around ninety percent are born with their Mark, between five and seven percent manifest before age sixteen (though according to the file these late Marks can be unusual, occasionally migrating up to the cap of the shoulder, or appearing splodged across the backs of the fingers) and between three and five percent never manifest. Markless.

She instructs BB-8 to open the file on Markless people.

She learns that there’s no correlation between orientation and Marklessness – there are Markless and Marked asexual humans, bisexual humans, heterosexual humans, aromantic humans… It’s not a medical problem, and there is no known environmental cause. It just happens.

_Markless individuals can and do lead perfectly healthy, happy, fulfilled lives,_ the dossier finishes. _Markless individuals are held up as divine by some species, and are often given positions of great power in their societies. Although this is not generally the case amongst humans, all Markless are protected on all human-inhabited planets from discrimination by law._

Her head is spinning by the time she finishes, and her stomach is complaining loudly. She spends a few minutes debating the relative merits of going back to sleep and ignoring it, versus how much effort will be required to make herself even vaguely presentable enough to venture into the mess hall, versus how good tonight’s dinner could possibly be.

She gives up and pings Jess instead, grateful that Poe taught her how. Jess answers immediately. 

“Are any of those offers still good?” Rey asks. Hopefully it sounds less pathetic than she thinks it does.

“I’ll come get you,” Jess says.

|

Jess’ dorm looks almost exactly like Rey’s, except she only has one roommate who apparently is never around, and on her bed is a faded floral blanket instead of the normal regulation coverlet. Rey wonders for a second where she got it, and then wonders if, more importantly, it’s as soft as it looks.

Jess hovers by the door as Rey picks her way in, making straight for the bed. She’s too tired to be self-conscious about it. She lifts the blanket and wraps it around her shoulders like a cape. The waft of peppermint makes her feel at least five percent better, which is a minor miracle.

“I’ll run to the mess and pick you up some of the late dinner,” Jess says firmly, in a tone that brooks no arguments. As though she can’t help herself, she takes a step forward and tucks the blanket more neatly against Rey’s neck. Her fingertips are gentle where they touch Rey’s skin, though her skin is rough, her hands well-used. The roughness sparks a tingle all down Rey’s side.

“But late dinner’s over,” Rey protests, confused.

“I’ll run and get you some dinner,” Jess repeats stubbornly. “I’ll be back soon.”

|

Jess brings back a tray groaning with servings of _all three_ dinner options, a bowl of soup, an apple, two slices of cake, and a little jug of custard. Rey has no idea where she has produced it from.

She also thought she wouldn’t have much of an appetite, but as soon as the tray’s in front of her, she finds she wants a bit of everything. Jess nods in approval and puts on the first of what turns out to be several cheesy, explosion-filled holos while Rey eats. She doesn’t even say anything about the possibility of Rey dropping food on her mattress.

When the first holo finishes, she starts the next. Rey is unspeakably grateful. They sit in companionable silence, side by side on the bed, until the third one has finished and Jess shuts it off. Without the holo-glow, the room is filled with warm, low light.

“I know you don’t want to talk about it right now,” Jess says into the silence, “but I also know you’re struggling, and it’s killing me that you’ve obviously never had any Markless-positive education in your entire life.”

Rey _doesn’t_ really want to talk about it, but at the same time, if that’s the payment Jess wants for her help, it’s not really very much to ask for.

“I’m listening,” Rey says. Jess scrubs her hand against the sheet, gathering it between her fingers and then letting it go slack again.

“I just wanted you to know, I don’t think it’s bad, being Markless. The way I see it,” Jess says, “it’s kind of like – we’re free, you know? I mean, Finn and Dameron are no kind of example because they’re… Well, they’re nauseating –“

Rey grimaces in agreement. Reviewing the past months with a more critical eye, she has no idea how she didn’t see it coming. The awed look on Finn’s face when Poe said _soulmate_ was actually the last piece of the puzzle, not the first. The logical conclusion to all those intimate whispers she observed on her way around base with Luke, to Poe always snagging Finn the ripest fruit at lunch, to the way Finn wore Poe’s jacket, to the way Poe had whispered in the dark _have you ever been down to the water, Finn? We’ll go_.

“But like, my parents were soulmates. And it puts so much pressure on stuff, you know? Because matching Marks doesn’t mean that everything’s going to be smooth sailing forever. It just sort of means that even if you really, really want to walk away, you feel like you can’t. Or at least like you shouldn’t. Because you’re meant for each other, right? What idiot would walk away from that?”

Rey feels understanding coming over her like old gears grinding together. That ponderous, that slow.

“If things don’t work out, it feels like it’s your fault,” she says finally. Her voice is much quieter than she means it to be. Jess nods.

“If it isn’t working, you’re not trying hard enough,” Jess agrees. Her voice is a little quieter, too. She draws her knees up to her chest and rests her cheek on them. “Because this person… They’re supposed to be perfect for you.”

“The only one in the whole galaxy,” Rey says. She suddenly feels winded. It had seemed romantic, once she was old enough to get over her childish revulsion. The One. But put like that, it actually sounds kind of scary.

There’s a pregnant pause in the room while Rey tries to sort through her thoughts. Before she can say anything back, there’s a frantic knocking on the door.

“Rey?” come two voices in unison. Jess springs off the bed.

“She’s not ready to talk!” she calls back, her mouth practically kissing the wood. “She’s staying here with me tonight.”

There’s a shuffling sound from beyond the door. The next voice is Poe’s alone, much clearer.

“You don’t understand, Pav,” he says. “We really, really need her. It’s not what you think.”

He sounds urgent. Rey gets up off Jess’ bed. Jess makes a gesture towards the door that says plainly it’s Rey’s call.

“Let them in,” Rey says, and Jess opens the door.

“Rey!” Poe and Finn say in unison, tumbling through the doorway. They’re out of breath. Rey would have thought she’d still be hurt at seeing them, but all she wants is to hug them. She loves them. She’ll always love them. She’s not going to throw it away, not when they didn’t do anything wrong, apart from stumbling into something she wanted for herself.

In fact, she needs them more than ever. She’s had such a long two days.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Finn explains. “We knew you were with BB-8 and then with Jess, but we weren’t sure where.”

He hurries over to her and grabs her elbow, trying to pull her into the centre of the room for some unknown reason.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she says, going with it because she doesn’t want to pull away from either of them again. She has to hurriedly yank up her blanket-toga so she won’t trip. “For running away. I mean, it’s going to take a while, but I’m happy for you two.”

She winces. The loss is still like a wound, even if a part of her is relieved that she can stop standing in front of the mirror every morning inspecting every inch of her arm, wondering if a new freckle is eventually going to grow into a Mark. Even if a part of her is just glad to have an explanation for what she is, a name.

“I’m going to be happy for you,” she revises, more truthfully. 

“That’s not what we meant,” Poe says. “Though obviously I’m glad about that, and we’re going to talk about it, and you should know that it’s always going to be the three of us, no matter what, because we’re family. But not now.”

He opens the trunk at the foot of Jess’ bed, and starts rifling through her clothes for some reason. He considers several items and then dumps them on the floor. 

“Dameron, what –“ Jess begins, but Poe just shakes his head, and eventually seizes a light sweater.

“There’s someone asking for Rey,” he says, shoving the sweater towards her. “They’re waiting at the practice arena.”

|

The grounds around the practice arena are deserted and calm, peaceful. Rey has no idea who would ask to meet her here, apart from Luke, who wouldn’t have sent a message with Finn and Poe. She has a sudden moment of irrational but almost paralyzing fear that it’s the General about to kick her out of the Resistance.

There’s a cloaked figure standing under one of the flowering trees.

“Hello, big beautiful anemone,” Mashra says. 

Time grinds to a stop. For the third time in less than forty-eight hours, her universe rearranges itself. 

Rey _runs_. She runs right up to Mashra, in case she’s going to evaporate, in case this isn’t real. If she’s asleep, she wants to finish this dream before she wakes.

“Mashra,” she says, and then dissolves into gasping, noisy sobs. Mashra’s arms come up around her to give the hug Rey has waited almost a decade for.

It turns out Aqualish do cry. Rey had her suspicions.

|

Like old times, Rey has so many questions she can barely get them out. Mashra holds up a hand to stop the flow.

“Maz Kanata,” she says, and just like that, half of Rey’s queries are solved. “We were sent to her on a job, and I don’t know how she knew, but she took one look at us and said the Resistance had someone we missed. So we have joined up. We knew she was talking about you.”

“Missed?” Rey asks, because even if half her questions have been diverted, she still has lots. “Joined up? Are the gang all here?”

She can’t help it, she looks over Mashra’s shoulder like they’re going to pop out from behind the trees.

“Oh, anemone,” Mashra says, cupping Rey’s cheek, “we have missed you so, so much. It was awful, leaving you on Jakku. We should never have gone, but we knew the only alternative was staying in that hellhole, living a half-life until we all dropped dead. I hoped your family would come for you. We vowed that we would return to make sure they had, once we had made enough money to retire.”

She sighs. She’s much older looking now than Rey remembers, her lips drooping around her tusks, more lines around her four eyes. One of them is milky now, instead of black, testifying either to age or to an injury. Rey wonders if it’s blind.

“Alas, our new job was not as law-abiding or as lucrative as we had been led to believe. We ended up as low-level bounty hunters, caught up in gang warfare. Although I worried about you, I ended up being grateful that you had stayed behind, and were not subjected to our new life.”

It’s so much to take in. Rey has a flash of the life she might have had, and grips Mashra’s hand in her own. It doesn’t matter now. None of it matters, now. Rey and the Resistance will look after them.

“We’re together now,” she says. “Aren’t we? Everyone survived?”

“Everyone,” Mashra confirms, with not a little pride. “The others are sorting out paperwork with the General, but I could not wait that long.”

She smiles what passes for an Aqualish smile. 

“You are so tall and grown now,” she says, in a tone of almost unbearable amazement. The tree above her head continues to shed blossoms in the breeze, and they land on Rey’s shoulders, around her feet, on the top of her head. Mashra lifts a hand to pluck one of them. Her other hand tightens around Rey’s. “Taller than Mashra, even! But I would know you anywhere, even if it had been fifty years.”

_Not alone_ , Rey thinks. It fills her with impossible lightness. _Not alone._

| 

The gang isn’t actually going to be on base for very long. The General already has a mission lined up for them; as a unit they’re a useful asset. Trying to read the lay of the land, Rey thinks they’re going to be almost continually deployed.

There’s time enough for reminiscing, though, and for Rey to take them all over the base and the grounds, explaining everything, showing them her favorite spots. There’s time enough for Rey to fill them in on the years they missed, to tell them about the attack on Starkiller Base, to tease Raegr about the gray hairs he has growing in his beard now. There’s time enough to introduce them to Luke (Mashra gets completely overwhelmed, and actually _bows_. Luke, thankfully, deals with it like a champ) and to show them some of what she’s been learning.

The General gives her leave from training for a few days (“you’ve been working very hard, Rey,” she says, as if that’s all it is, but the General is soft about family for obvious reasons) and Finn and Poe keep a respectful distance. 

Taken all together the time and space is enough for her to come to terms in some way with being Markless. It still hurts – it’s still _going_ to hurt for a while, but there are other things that need her time now. Bigger things, like family, like the war.

And being Markless doesn’t mean being alone. She has Finn and Poe, and BB-8, and the gang, and Luke. And Jess.

_Markless individuals can and do lead perfectly healthy, happy, fulfilled lives,_ the dossier said. She can, and she will. She’ll be someone that Markless kids can look up to, so they know they’re not alone.

It’s a radical new direction, but that’s been her whole life so far. Rey adapts, and she survives, and she keeps going. There’s no reason to stop now.

|

She avoids introducing the gang to anyone other than Luke for a while, partly because she wants (as ridiculous as it is) to hoard them to herself a little, and partly because she’s sort of frightened that they won’t like her new friends. Which is even more ridiculous, sure, but she can’t help it. She wants to stay in this little bubble of perfect reunion as long as possible.

But eventually she realises it’s definitely time. Mostly because she overhears Poe on a call with Jess in their dorm, and they’re clearly discussing the whole situation with great confusion.

Poe says _I think she’s Rey’s… Mom?_ , and Jess pauses for quite a while, so long Rey’s not sure if her response was just too quiet to be heard through the bathroom door.

_Well, that seems… Physiologically unlikely,_ Jess says eventually, and Rey snorts a bit of toothpaste up her nose, and resolves to set something up.

|

It goes great. Of course it does. They do it down by the practice arena, under the flowering trees, which is rapidly becoming one of Rey’s favorite places. Finn doesn’t blink when Raegr claps him on the shoulder with enough force to bring down a Tauntaun, and Poe kisses Mashra’s offered hand, and answers all her intrigued questions about being a Resistance pilot.

Rey introduces Jess last, for no reason she can quantify.

“Ah,” Mashra says, nodding to herself. She reaches out and grips Jess firmly around each bicep, and then nudges Rey very sharply in the side, making her stumble. “Yes, this is the one Mashra was waiting to meet. Mashra can see why she is your young lady, anemone. Very good stock. And beautiful, of course.”

Rey feels a pall of utter panic drift over her. 

“Mashra!” she squeaks, worried that Jess will be offended at being described like a beast of burden, but Jess immediately throws her head back with the force of her laughter.

“You know, Mashra, you’re all right,” she says, winking at Rey. “I’m glad I’m beautiful enough to be Rey’s friend, that’s good to know.”

Unless Mashra has morphed completely into someone else in the last few years – and she definitely hasn’t – Rey can smell that she’s about to say something else. Mashra hates to be misunderstood, and Rey has a feeling some wires have got crossed, even if she’s not entirely sure what Mashra _did_ mean to get across.

“Great!” Rey says, maybe a little shrilly. “Now we all know each other, that’s great. Listen, guys, Finn and Poe and Jess have training to get back to, so we’ll see them later, okay?”

“Already?” Grover asks. Rey pets him on the head in consolation, pointing out that they still have a picnic lunch waiting for them to eat.

“A shame,” Stisillikin sighs. He’s been trading terrible knock-knock jokes with Finn, and it’s giving Poe an odd expression that’s almost a perfect cross between besotted and pained. Rey’s kind of sad about calling a halt to proceedings herself.

“I’ll ask around and get some more for next time,” Finn promises, and yep, the gang is officially in love with Rey’s friends. It’s sort of sweet, even if she has a headache brewing.

|

That night, Jess comes by Rey’s dorm, beside herself with excitement about a vintage component the tech guys have sourced that she thinks might help their broken droid.

“They got these for some other big project,” she says dismissively, waving it around, “but they had an extra, and I called in a favor!”

She’s in her sleeping clothes, with the sweater Rey borrowed to go see Mashra thrown over the top. She obviously couldn’t wait to tell Rey. Her feet are bare, her naked calves strangely vulnerable.

Rey wants to bring her inside and wrap her up in a blanket, and keep her. Touch the soles of her cold feet to Jess’s shins, hear her shriek. It manifests itself as a painful squeezing in her chest. 

She hears Mashra’s voice saying _your young lady_.

Oh. _Oh_.

She thinks about Poe and Finn, and how the first piece of the puzzle turned out to be the last. She may have been stupid. She may have been very, very stupid.

Jess says some more stuff, but Rey has no idea what it is. It’s like the whole exchange is taking place underwater. When Jess stops talking and looks expectantly at her, Rey nods maniacally and then waves her away, back down the hall.

“You weren’t listening to her, were you,” Poe says when she comes back in, closing the door. It must be written all over her face. He’s watching her with that heavy look again, but this time it reeks of suspicion.

“I…” Rey says. “Um, no. Did you – did you happen to hear what we…”

“She’s going to come by to get you tomorrow morning, after you see Mashra and everyone off on mission. You’re going to try out the new component in the droid,” Poe summarises.

“Thanks,” Rey says, dazed. 

“Rey,” Finn says, speaking up from where he’s already lying in bed, just his face visible from within his cocoon, “are you sick? Are you okay? Should we get someone?”

“She’s fine, Finn,” Poe says. “She’s just tired.”

He still sounds suspicious, and very displeased about it.

| 

The last evening before the gang leaves for their mission, Rey takes them all down to the beach to watch the sun set. The day has been unseasonably chilly, so it’s too cold for Rey or Mashra to go in the water, but they sit a little way up the beach and watch as the thicker-skinned Grover, Yang, Raegr and Stisillikin splash around, yelling at each other.

“We are so proud of you, anemone,” Mashra says. “Look at all you have built for yourself.”

A third family. A safe place. Friends. They’re in the middle of a war, but one that Rey feels certain they will win. She has even got back people she feared might be lost to her forever. Mashra’s right, it’s a lot.

“I’m lucky,” she says, and means it. She knows it, most of the time. 

For a few minutes there’s nothing but the sound of the waves, and the soft slap of handfuls of wet sand thrown between the boys on the beach, even though really they’re too old for that.

“Mashra,” Rey says, and then stops, uncertain of how to phrase what she needs to say. Last night after Jess left she had lain awake in bed and picked at what Mashra had said - _your young lady_. She knows what she _wants_ to do about it, but not what she _should_ do.

She’s painfully aware that once the gang have moved out it might be weeks before she gets another chance to ask. She steels herself.

“Do you remember, years ago, you told me about Marks?”

“Yes,” Mashra says.

“Mine never appeared,” Rey admits. “I’m Markless.”

It actually feels good to say it aloud for the first time. Mashra nods very slowly, but doesn’t react with shock or horror. She just scoops up a handful of sand, and then slackens her grip to let the grains trickle back down to join their sisters.

“That actually does not surprise me, treetrunk,” she says. Down at the water’s edge, Grover has climbed up onto Yang’s shoulders, and now they’re stumbling around on the soft sand. Someone’s going to break an ankle. 

“I suspected, back when you were small. Among my people, the Markless are raised up. They are anointed. They are rulers, and diplomats. They are special, as you are.”

Rey says nothing.

“This troubles you, though. Mashra can tell. What is wrong? Is the strong, beautiful girl Marked? Does she refuse you because of it?”

“No,” Rey says, willing down the blush that crawls up her neck at how obvious she must have been, even before she knew herself what was going on with her and Jess. “She’s Markless, too. It’s just… Do you think there’s any point in loving someone if there’s no guarantee it’ll work out? No sign that you’ve even chosen the right person to try with?”

Mashra doesn’t even same to take time to consider her answer.

“Anemone, you have already done it. You loved us, and we left, and there was no guarantee we would ever come back,” she says. 

“But you had to go, you had no choice. And you _did_ come back,” Rey insists, a protective little flare leaping to life in her. She won’t let Mashra carry any guilt. There’s no point, not when they are together now. Not when they have time now.

“Yes, but you didn’t know that, when you chose to let yourself love us,” Mashra says, with almost infuriating patience. It’s funny that that all-wise tone still bugs Rey just as much, even though she’s grown up. “Nor us, when we started to love you.”

Rey thinks about this. She finds, annoyingly, that she has no counterargument.

“I’m scared,” she admits. It’s the first time in a very, very long time that she has admitted that.

“Oh, rivermouth,” Mashra says tenderly, “if this really is about the strong, beautiful girl, you are much too late. Mashra can smell that you love her already.”

She taps her face. “Old Aqualish trick.”

Rey gawps at her. Down on the beach, someone bodily chucks Grover into the sea.

“That’s… disturbing,” Rey manages finally. Then an interesting thought strikes her. “Could you smell if she loves me?”

Mashra is quiet for so long that Rey fears she _can_ , and that Jess _doesn’t_. It’s agony.

“It would not be Mashra’s place to say,” she says after an eternity. It’s an irritatingly diplomatic answer. 

“Figures,” Rey grumbles. Mashra smiles her unknowable smile.

|

Jess spirits her away to the droid station in the morning, so she hasn’t a chance to mope over the gang’s departure before tools and equipment are being shoved into her hands. It’s kind of perfect.

It’s another long day of swearing and disappointment and aching knees. Rey cuts her finger open, stupidly, and just wraps it in a dirty rag so they can keep going. They’re _close_ , there’s something in the air.

By mutual agreement they skip lunch. Then dinner. Poe and Finn try to contact them, but the calls go unanswered. Eventually Jess sends BB-8 to find the boys, armed with an empty knapsack to hopefully be filled with food, and an apologetic message.

|

It’s the middle of the night when the droid comes back to life.

[[Hello!]] it chirps. Its camera-eye whirs, focusing on the two of them, kneeling on the ground beside it. Programming them in as primary users, maybe. Imprinting like a baby animal. It beeps to itself as if pleased.

To Rey’s astonishment, it then rolls its way unsteadily over to BB-8. It moves slowly, to compensate for its loose left track, but it’s _moving_. It’s talking.

“We’re gonna need to replace that track,” Rey says, scrambling to her feet. She’ll make a note. “We should probably replace the other one at the same time, it would be more efficient.”

She realizes Jess hasn’t said anything. Her hand is up at her mouth, her shoulders pulled in. Every part of her seems to be struggling against something.

BB-8 initiates a scan of the droid. A small field of orange light passes over its squat, bulky body. 

[[Friend!]] BB-8 says to the droid.

[[Friend,]] the droid repeats, a little uncertainly, as if this is a new word.

Jess clears her throat. Rey wants to touch her shoulder, but isn’t sure if she’s allowed. The bluish-green lamps of the droid station make it so the place feels unreal, outside of normal space and time, but Rey’s still not sure what is okay, now that everything has changed for her.

“Listen, Rey,” Jess says, “I’m going to cry now, okay? Please pretend it’s not happening.” 

It hits Rey like a sledgehammer, or maybe, more accurately, it crashes over her like a warm wave, buoying her up. Love. It feels this way, this kind of love. It feels like a goofy joke that makes you smile even as you fly away from the first safe place you’ve had in years. It feels like holding on to an image of someone when you’re far away, like looking at someone across a crowded mess hall and wishing them closer, like dreaming up elaborate fantasies of meeting again (all modeled on _romantic_ holos she’s seen, she really has been so stupid, she could probably win an award). It feels like working together, and struggling together, and succeeding together. 

_I felt something I couldn’t explain,_ Finn had said. _It’s a rightness_. Rey is never going to know what the soulmate-version of that feels like, but she thinks it can’t possibly be much better than this.

But of course, Jess is crying, and she’d rather reveal all this when Jess isn’t covered in snot. Annoyingly, the only thing around that Rey could offer Jess to wipe her face with would be a filthy rag. Jess is bare-armed in a tank again, so she doesn’t even have a sleeve to use. The tears are rolling into her mouth, but at the same time, she’s laughing.

“We did it,” she says, flailing a hand out to squeeze Rey’s wrist. “We actually did it.”

Rey is about to offer the services of her own clean sleeve, when Jess just grips the bottom of her tank and lifts it up to wipe her face, revealing the strong lines of her waist and the edge of a black sports bra. It’s very, um. It’s interesting.

It suddenly feels very, very dishonest to keep this to herself any longer. 

“Jess, I have something I wanted to tell you,” Rey says, all impulse. Jess hiccups another unsteady, overwhelmed laugh.

“Well,” she says, still watching as the little droid trundles around the workstation, investigating things. BB-8 trails alongside it like a proud big sibling, talking all the while. “We’ve got time. Let’s hear it.”

“I love you,” Rey says. Tiredness has made her honest, and something about tonight makes her feel like maybe Jess already knows anyway. Like she’s just waiting for the go ahead.

But Jess freezes, everything about her screaming tension. It’s enough to cause every bit of Rey’s euphoria to drain away, and be replaced instantly by dread. Jess didn’t know. _Jess didn’t know,_ and it’s too late to take it back. Bile rises in Rey’s throat.

“Rey,” Jess says. Her body language, so open and happy before, is suddenly closed and spiky. “Don’t do this to me, okay? Not now.”

“Do what?” Rey asks. She has to work not to sound like she’s been gargling broken glass. Her brain is still whirring noisily, trying to figure a way out of this.

“Rey, I’m not stupid,” Jess says. She picks up a cloth and viciously wipes up a patch of spilled oil, turning her back to Rey. “I’m the only other Markless person you know, or whatever. But you don’t have to settle for me. There are other Markless, and plenty of Marked who don’t believe in soulmates anyway.”

She stops, hanging her head, her arms locked. For the first time tonight, it’s clear she’s exhausted.

“Look, whatever Dameron told you, forget it, okay? That boy means well, and he thinks that’s enough. He’s an idiot.”

“What did he tell me?” Rey asks, as cautiously as she possibly can. In a sudden flurry of motion, Jess balls up the rag and throws it at the wall. It connects with a dull smack, and then flops down onto the floor.

“That I love you,” she bites out. She tries to shove her hands through her hair, obviously forgetting that she put it up in a braid. Her fingers get stuck. When she wrenches them free, one big loop of hair is left sticking out of the twist, and it wobbles around ludicrously. Rey loves her so much she feels sick.

“That I’ve loved you since the day I met you, going off on your big mission to get Skywalker back. That I couldn’t stop myself from barging in on Dameron’s stupid training sessions just to see you, even though I knew nothing would ever happen.”

“Why not?” Rey asks, because it’s worked so far. It’s the middle of the night, but the world feels impossibly bright and new. _Jess loves her_.

“Because I asked Poe everything I could about you, but you asked him nothing back,” Jess says, slumping. “You clearly weren’t interested, so I tried to stay away. I tried, but…”

She waves her hand around angrily in a way that must be supposed to encompass all the events of the past weeks, right down to their cozy sessions reanimating a busted droid.

“I tried not to be interested,” Rey says quickly, aware that Jess could clam up and bolt at any minute. She only realizes the truth of it as it’s coming out of her mouth. “I was so set on fitting my life into this… This preconceived idea I had. Soulmates with Finn, the first person I’d met in years who made me feel safe. I was so caught up in it that I didn’t even understand that if I was really meant to be with him I wouldn’t think about you so much. I wouldn’t think about you the _way_ that I thought about you.”

The room is silent. Not even BB-8 or the new droid make a noise.

“What way?” Jess asks hoarsely. It’s almost a plea.

“I want you near me all the time,” Rey says. Jess’s face is doing this beautiful, complicated thing. “Jess, I do. You, nobody else. Poe didn’t tell me anything. This is just me talking.”

Jess doesn’t move.

“Jess,” Rey says. She won’t be able to bear it if Jess sends her away now. “Please.” 

There’s an explosion of motion. Jess reaches her in three long strides and _grabs her_. The kiss makes Rey hot right the way from her feet to her hairline, curls her toes in her shoes. Jess’ bare arms are strong around her as she dips Rey a little bit.

[[Oh no!]] BB-8 squeaks, presumably to the new droid. [[Don’t look, Friend!]]

It makes Rey giggle against Jess’ mouth, which is probably really not a great thing to do when you’re kissing someone. Jess gets the giggles too, though, so maybe it’s okay.

Without setting Rey fully back on her feet, Jess presses her forehead to Rey’s. Outside, Rey knows the sun is coming up.

It’s a whole new day.

**Epilogue**

It takes ten more years, but Rey eventually gets her Mark.

The gash is enormous, practically the entire length of her forearm, and the medic who sees them at the hospital frets that it’s so deep it’s definitely going to leave a scar.

“That’s okay,” Rey says quickly, hoping to hurry the process along. Jess is clinging to her other hand hard enough that Rey suspects the nurse’s next issue might be surgical removal of an embedded wedding ring. Despite all the reasons that it shouldn’t be true, Jess is incredibly funny about blood and always has been.

“Ko isn’t going to calm down for about a month,” Jess warns, just as the needle is going in, which is obviously really great, completely fair timing. All Rey needs right now is to picture their droid driving around the house in freaked-out circles, wailing [[Rey Rey Rey Rey!]]

“Thanks, that’s just great,” Rey grits out, but Jess is resolute.

“I _told_ you not to try putting up that treehouse yourself,” she says. She turns her face away in disgust when the nurse starts pulling at the flaps of skin, but she also presses a kiss to Rey’s temple that’s full of feeling. “You total idiot, you could have really damaged yourself.”

“I know,” Rey says. Her arm is completely numb, which is a bizarre sensation. That might also be a painkiller high she can feel coming on. Or it could just be the feeling of Jess’ kiss, even after all these years.

Can she say that thought out loud? Are the painkillers enough excuse for that?

“Done,” the nurse announces. Her mouth is twitching like she’s trying not to laugh at them.

“Wait, did I say the kiss thing out loud?” Rey asks. She’s distantly aware that she should probably be horrified at the thought, but equally she appears to be enveloped in a fluffy pink cloud that doesn’t seem to leave room for things like shame. It’s excellent, these new painkillers are the _bomb_.

“You did,” Jess confirms. “We’re going to be expelled from the hospital because you’re so gross. I hope you’re happy.”

“I am happy,” Rey says, and means it. Under Jess’ fondly exasperated regard, she waves her disgusting, bloodied, stitched up arm. She’s going to look so _tough_ with this enormous scar. Like a war wound.

Because she can, and because suddenly the thought is dizzying, she reaches forward and trails her fingertips over Jess’ scarred elbow, exposed by her short summer sleeves.

“You know, we match now, love,” she says. Reverent, full of wonder.

**Author's Note:**

> More detailed warnings: this story’s depiction of Rey’s past includes the fact that she doesn’t get enough to eat, and also implies that she has been hit by other (unnamed) citizens of Jakku. The injury occurs in the epilogue, and consists of a bad gash on the arm that requires stitches.


End file.
